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Notes
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The story of the honest woodsman – the subject of Rosa’s painting – is taken from Aesop’s Fables, a collection of moral tales from ancient Greece. In the story, the god Mercury takes pity on a woodsman who has accidentally dropped his axe into a river. He retrieves two axes from the water, one gold and one silver; the honest woodsman claims neither as his own, so Mercury gives him both as a reward, as well as his original axe. On hearing this, a dishonest woodsman swears that he too has dropped a tool in the water. Rosa’s painting shows Mercury emerging from the river holding a golden axe, and the woodsman dashing forwards to claim it. The god denied him the axe. This painting was commissioned in around 1663 by Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna, a major art collector in Rome.
Title
Landscape with Mercury and the Dishonest Woodman
Date
after 1649
Medium
Oil on canvas
Measurements
H 125.7 x W 202.1 cm
Accession number
NG84
Acquisition method
Bought, 1837
Work type
Painting
The National Gallery, London
Trafalgar Square, London, Greater London WC2N 5DN England
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